USA/Sahel: Questions Asked, Unasked, Half-Answered

Editor's Note

The U.S. military presence in Africa, which has been growing steadily since the years
following the 9/11 attack, has been having a spotlight in U.S. media after the death of
four U.S. soldiers in Niger on October 4. But despite numerous questions raised, and
the prominent attention given to the characteristically obtuse and insensitive
response from the White House, the questions raised have been at best half-answered. And
fundamental questions about counterterrorism strategy and U.S. policy were left
unasked in the Washington-focused debate.

While the Pentagon review about the details of the incident continued, and there were
debates about both intelligence failures and whether the mission was in fact only
"training and reconnaissance" or also a botched effort to target a "high-profile
target," questioning of existing policy was muted. Administration and congressional
hawks focused on providing more resources to double-down on U.S. military
involvement. Congressional critics focused on the lack of updated authorization and
called for a full debate on counterterrorist military operations around the world,
but the momentum for such debate quickly faltered.

The outcome to date appears to be much wider awareness of the extent of U.S.
involvement, based on investigative reporting as well as the military's own reports
which previously attracted little media attention. But there was little if any sign
of questioning the basic premise of U.S. strategy centering military responses to
terrorist threats around the world. Even the critics who pointed out the ineffectual
and even counterproductive results of U.S. policy made little effort to address the
question of what should be done by African governments or multilateral efforts to
counter real terrorist threats.

This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains a selection of very brief excerpts from coverage
related to these debates over the last six weeks, in each case with a link to the
full article. Some provide some partial answers; most leave more questions than
answers. And key questions remain unasked. Another AfricaFocus Bulletin sent out
today (and available at http://www.africafocus.org/docs17/cve1711.php) highlights
more substantive discussion about one fundamental question only hinted at in
Washington debate, namely, whether counterterrorism policies, whether by the United
States or other actors, is not only ineffective but also counterproductive, serving
to increase rather than decrease future terrorist threats. That, of course, is an
issue which is not limited to Africa. But the default response in Washington to
"double-down" on military engagement in the Sahelpromises not more security for
Africa and the United States, but less.

For coverage of Niger in the Washington Post and the New York, in October and
November 2017, use the following link to a customized Google search:
http://tinyurl.com/y8vj87hd

What happened and what is the U.S. doing in the Sahel?

Adamou Boubacar, a 23-year-old farmer and trader, said some children tending
cattle found the remains of the soldier Oct. 6, two days after the attack
outside the remote Niger village of Tongo Tongo, which also left five
Nigerien soldiers dead. The children notified him.

When Boubacar went to the location, a bushy area roughly a mile from the
ambush site, he saw Johnson’s body lying face down, he said. The back of
his head had been smashed by something, possibly a bullet, said Boubacar.
The soldier’s wrists were bound with rope, he said, raising the possibility
that the militants — whom the Pentagon suspects were affiliated with the
Islamic State — seized Johnson during the firefight and held him captive.

The U.S. Special Forces unit that came under attack in Niger earlier this month had
been pursuing a senior militant, multiple U.S. officials told NBC News. The officials
did not provide the name of the target, whom one of the officials described as an
ISIS recruiter. The soldiers did not succeed in catching him. ...

The Niger mission was carried out under the broader auspices of Operation Juniper
Shield, a program initiated under the Obama administration and reauthorized under the
Trump administration, according to multiple U.S. military officials. Juniper Shield
is intended to "disrupt or neutralize" terror organizations affiliated with Al Qaeda
and the Islamic State operating across North and West Africa, primarily through the
killing or capturing of members of its senior and intermediate leadership.

A subset of this operation, Juniper Micron, is focused specifically on supporting the
French counterterror and stabilization mission in Mali, Operation Barkhane.

Niger hosts one of the largest numbers of U.S. troops in Africa. In June, the White
House reported to Congress that some 645 U.S. military personnel were stationed there
to support counterterrorism operations by "African partners." More recent news
reports have cited 800.

These figures show a significant increase since 2013, when President Obama announced
the deployment of about 100 military personnel to Niger for regional intelligence,
surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) operations. This trend has coincided with
sizable increases in U.S. security assistance for African countries over the past
decade, of which Niger has been a major beneficiary. In addition to conducting
security assistance and cooperation activities in Niger and neighboring states, the
U.S. military also provides logistical and intelligence support to France's Operation
Barkhane.

Four U.S. soldiers, four Nigerien troops, and an interpreter died in the Oct. 4
battle. It was a bitter reminder to the 3rd Group that it was no longer in
Afghanistan, the combat theater where the Fort Bragg, North Carolina-based unit had
been focused from 2002 until late 2015. There, its teams could call in airstrikes
often instantaneously and almost always within minutes. But since switching from
Afghanistan to North and West Africa, the group has had to grapple with what its
veterans repeatedly refer to as the continent's "tyranny of distance," combined with
a paucity of resources when compared with mature combat theaters like Iraq and
Afghanistan.

The sheer vastness of the area of operations, combined with the lack of resources
when compared with Afghanistan, can be a shock to special operators used to having
drones and strike aircraft available to get a team out of trouble.

A former 3rd Group officer with extensive Afghanistan experience said for special
operators who have spent their entire military career fighting in Afghanistan, the
adjustment to Africa can be jarring.

"You had a shitload of resources in Afghanistan — even when it was underfunded,
compared with Iraq — that you don't have in Africa," the former officer said.

Wider context on U.S. involvement

Karen Attiah, "After Niger, ramping up U.S. 'agression' in Africa is a really, really
bad idea," Washington Post, Oct. 24, 2017 http://tinyurl.com/y7c66xfp - includes
excellent 3-minute video "Just what the heck is the U.S. military up to in Africa?"

In the absence of answers, and a lack of a clear and coherent Africa strategy to
begin with, ramping up U.S. military aggression in Africa sounds like a really,
really bad idea right now.

To be fair, the Trump administration inherited an overmilitarized Africa policy from
the Obama administration, which oversaw the expansion of the Africom regional command
and special operations forces. Africa hosts the second largest regional contingent of
special operations forces after the Middle East. The percent of special forces
deployed to Africa rose from 3 percent to 17 percent between 2010 and 2016. ...

On Thursday, asked about why U.S. troops were in Africa, White House Chief of Staff
John F. Kelly said, "They're there working with partners … teaching them how to be
better soldiers; teaching them how to respect human rights …" However on Friday, the
Post reported that the Pentagon was adopting a "status-based targeting" system for
suspected terrorists, meaning troops will be able to use lethal force against a
suspected member of a terrorist organization even if that person does not pose an
immediate threat."

This should make anyone who cares about human rights and effective counterterror
strategy quite nervous.

Looking back, 16 years later, it's extraordinary how September 11, 2001, would set
the pattern for everything that followed. Each further goading act, from Afghanistan
to Libya, San Bernardino to Orlando, Iraq to Niger, each further humiliation would
trigger yet more of the same behavior in Washington.

After all, so many people and institutions — above all, the U.S. military and the
rest of the national security state — came to have a vested interest in Osama bin
Laden's version of our world. ...

In twenty-first-century Washington, failure is the new success and repetition is the
rule of the day, week, month, and year.

Take, for example, the recent events in Niger. Consider the pattern of call-andresponse
there. Almost no Americans (and it turned out, next to no senators) even
knew that the U.S. had something like 900 troops deployed permanently to that West
African country and two drone bases there (though it was no secret). Then, on October
4th, the first reports of the deaths of four American soldiers and the wounding of
two others in a Green Beret unit on a "routine training mission" in the lawless
Niger-Mali border area came out. The ambush, it seemed, had been set by an ISIS
affiliate.
...

And suddenly U.S. Africa Command was highlighting its desire for more money from
Congress; the military was moving to arm its Reaper drones in Niger with Hellfire
missiles for future counterterrorism operations; and Secretary of Defense Mattis was
assuring senators privately that the military would "expand" its "counterterrorism
focus" in Africa. The military began to prepare to deploy Hellfire Missile-armed
Reaper drones to Niger. "The war is morphing," Graham insisted. "You're going to see
more actions in Africa, not less; you're going to see more aggression by the United
States toward our enemies, not less; you're going to have decisions being made not in
the White House but out in the field."

The mission never made the front page of the New York Times or the Washington Post.
It wasn't covered on CNN or Fox News. Neither the White House chief of staff, the
chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, nor the president ever addressed it in a press
briefing. But from mid-January to late March 2013, Green Berets from the 10th Special
Forces Group deployed to the impoverished West African nation of Niger. Working
alongside local forces, they trained in desert mobility, the use of heavy weapons,
and methods of deliberate attack.

On May 15 of that year, another contingent of Special Forces soldiers arrived in
Niger. For nearly two months, they also trained with local troops, focusing on
similar combat skills with an emphasis on missions in remote areas. From the
beginning of August until mid-September, yet another group of Green Berets traveled
to the hot, arid country for training, concentrating on desert operations, heavy
weapons employment, intelligence analysis, and other martial matters, according to
Pentagon documents obtained by The Intercept via the Freedom of Information Act.

One constant of all of these counterterrorism missions, which were carried out by
small teams of elite U.S. troops operating alongside Nigerien forces, was a
concentration on reconnaissance. Until recently, such missions were conducted without
notice or media scrutiny. ...

U.S. efforts, primarily focused on training allies and proxies, are flawed, often
ineffective, and can have destabilizing effects on countries that military
operations are meant to strengthen, according to experts. Cast as benign training
operations, they can lead to unforeseen consequences and dangerous blowback. ...

"Simply throwing more money at the existing programs and doing what we've been doing
— but just simply more of it — strikes me as a really bad idea," [RAND Corporation
analyst Michael] Shurkin added. "At the very least, we're going to waste a lot of
money. And we can definitely make things worse."

After 15 years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, many now see 'smallfootprint'
security force assistance (SFA) - training, advising and equipping allied
militaries - as an alternative to large US ground-force commitments. Yet, its actual
military efficacy has been little studied. This paper seeks to fill this gap. ...

In fact, this idea of using 'small footprint' SFA to secure US interests without
large ground-force deployments is now at the very forefront of the US defense debate.
... More broadly, SFA is central to US policy for Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Niger, Mali,
Nigeria, Pakistan, Mauritania and many other ongoing and prospective conflicts around
the world. In fact, it has become a major pillar of global US national security
policy - the 2012 Defense Strategic Guidance frames it as central to effective
stability operations in an era in which US forces will no longer be sized to
accomplish these by themselves. ...

Our central finding is that effective SFA is much harder in practice than often
assumed and less viable as a substitute for large unilateral troop deployments. For
the US in particular, the achievable upper bound is normally modest, and even this is
possible only if US policy is intrusive and conditional, which it rarely is. This is
because SFA is best understood as a principal-agent (PA) problem, and one whose
structural conditions promote large agency losses for the SFA provider. That is, the
conditions under which the US provides SFA commonly involve large interest
misalignments between the provider (the principal) and the recipient (the agent),
difficult monitoring challenges and difficult conditions for enforcement - a
combination that typically leaves principals with limited real leverage and that
promotes inefficiency in aid provision.

...

For the foreseeable future, small footprints mean small payoffs for the US - where
limited US interests preclude large deployments, major results will rarely be
possible from minor investments in SFA. ... But SFA's real costs and risks are easy
to underestimate, and its military benefits have often been oversold. Overuse is thus
a real danger: SFA can help, but only rarely will it provide major effectiveness
improvements from modest investments in training and equipment.

The links between militant groups in the region - whether identified as "jihadist" or
not - are often fluid and belie easy categorisation. This label obscures a situation
which deserves much more consideration before pulling the trigger. And it takes
attention away from the experiences of local populations who are often stuck between
militant groups and sometimes hostile governments and foreign armies.

The area in which the American soldiers died is already replete with all possible
forms of foreign or domestic interventions. These range from muscular to diplomatic,
security-oriented to development oriented. The G5 Sahel, a regional initiative backed
by the French to enhance security cooperation, presents one opportunity to
consolidate and harmonise these efforts. For now, though, it has struggled to develop
its capabilities and to raise the money necessary to function.

Rather than considering whether they should revise their military rules of
engagement, US authorities should ask themselves how they could contribute to what
already exists. They should also understand that without attention to the local
environment and genuine care for local civilians, the fire along the Mali-Niger
border will only grow hotter and more difficult to contain.

[This article also includes a concise history of jihadist groups in the area.]

"When Donald Trump was elected president of the United States (US) in January, many
wondered what his administration's policy towards Africa would be. Ten months later,
it is clear that regarding security at least, a reduction of the US cost burden for
United Nations (UN) peacekeeping, combined with increased direct US military
engagement and a preference for bilateral support, are key pillars. ... these
approaches risk constraining the capacity of nascent African initiatives that require
predictable support not only on a bilateral level, but also from the UN.

The US continues to support the fight against extremist groups in the Sahel, Lake
Chad Basin and the Horn of Africa. However Trump's insistence on reducing US
financial aid has affected many areas of cooperation with Africa on peace and
security. This includes blocking proposals to use UN-assessed contributions to
support African peace security operations like the African Union Mission to Somalia
(AMISOM) and the G5 Sahel mission. The US has instead pursued a more bilateral
approach.

Maradi, Niger - A Nigerien soldier from the 322nd Parachute Regiment shoots during
target practice facilitated by 1st Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne)
Soldiers April 3, 2007. The training is part of Operation Flintlock 2007 which
includes an interactive exchange of military, linguistic and intercultural skills for
Niger and the U.S. Credit: http://www.eucom.mil/media-library/photo/16808/eucom-photo

Wider context on security and the Sahel

For in-depth background analysis and first-hand reporting on conflict in the Sahel
region, two extremely useful sources are the IRIN humanitarian news service and the
International Crisis Group.

New Sahel anti-terror force: risks and opportunities

Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger are teaming up to take on Islamist
militants with the launch of a the 5,000-strong "FC-G5S" force in the restive Sahel.
But are more boots on the ground the answer?

UN Secretary-General António Guterres recently told the Security Council, which votes
today on whether to fund the nascent multinational military force, that supporting it
was "an opportunity that cannot be missed" and that failing to back it would carry
serious risks for a region where insecurity has become "extremely worrying".

The Security Council "welcomed the deployment" of the force in a resolution adopted
in June, but put off a decision about financing. The resolution's wording was the
subject of a prolonged tussle between France - the G5 force's main proponent - and
the United States, which didn't believe a resolution was necessary, sees the force's
mandate as too broad, and, as the world body's biggest contributor, isn't convinced
the UN should bankroll it.

On Friday, US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley said Washington wants to know "what
the strategy would be, how they see this playing out, what's involved in it, before
we ever commit to UN-assessed funding".

France has been working hard to win over the United States. On a visit to Washington
last week, French Defence Minister Florence Parly said the former colonial power had
no desire to become the "Praetorian Guard of sovereign African countries".

Existing forces

In 2013 and 2014, France's Operation Serval drove back militants in Mali's northern
desert from some of the towns and other sanctuaries they had taken. With attacks
nevertheless continuing and having spread beyond Mali's borders, 4,000 French troops
are currently deployed under the banner of Operation Barkhane across all the G5
states.

Mali is also home to the 14,000-strong MINUSMA force, one of the UN's most expensive
peacekeeping missions. It has come under frequent attack by militant groups such as
the Jama'a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM), an al-Qaeda-linked coalition forged
last March. Some 86 blue helmets have been killed in militant attacks since MINUSMA
was established in July 2013.

Meanwhile, efforts by civil society groups to negotiate with some jihadist groups
have come to nought, while parties to a 2015 peace agreement between Mali's
government and two coalitions of domestic armed groups - a deal that excluded the
jihadists - are embroiled in violent divisions among themselves. Some of these
domestic groups are also responsible for attacks against the state.

These divisions have dimmed hopes of forging any kind of common front against the
jihadists, and even of properly implementing the 2015 accord. The government's
failure to address widespread political and economic grievance further undermines its
position.

Humanitarian fallout

All this insecurity comes at a high price for Mali's civilians. At the end of the
2016-17 academic year, 500 schools were closed, up from 296 the previous year, while
the numbers of refugees and internally displaced reached a record 140,000 and 55,000
respectively.

Acute malnutrition among children under five has reached "critical levels" in
conflict-affected areas around Timbuktu and Gao, according to UNICEF. The agency
predicts that 165,000 children across the country will be acutely malnourished next
year.

"Repeated criminal acts" prompted the International Committee of the Red Cross to
suspend its operations in the northern Kidal region in mid-October.

Funding concerns

The primary mandate of the G5 force will be to secure the bloc's common borders and
fight "terrorist" and criminal groups.

The force's headquarters were established in September in the central Malian town of
Sévaré, but its financing has yet to be secured.

"Estimates still vary; nothing has been settled," said a diplomat who has followed
the latest developments. "If we get to 250 million euros at the donors' conference in
December, that would be very good. But even if financing is obtained in December, the
force will not be operational the next day."

The G5 says it needs 423 million euros to set things up and run the force for its
first year, but so far only a quarter of this sum has materialised, with the G5 and
the EU both coming up with 50 million euros and France another eight million.

"Mobilising sustainable and consistent financial support over a period of several
years will remain a significant challenge," conceded Guterres in his report.

Money is far from the only uncertainty: Trust between G5 member states remains shaky.

"The Burkina military believe their Malian counterparts are 'lazy' and joined the
army to get an income and not to defend the country," the International Crisis Group
said, for example, in its latest report on Burkina Faso.

And the security and political agendas of G5 states are not always aligned. Facing an
economic and social crisis, regional powerhouse Chad, which already has troops in
MINUSMA and in a separate regional force fighting Boko Haram, hopes to make the most
of its involvement in the force, whose remit it would like to see expanded to include
other regional threats closer to home.

Risks

Given how often existing forces in Mali, including the army, are attacked (losing
weapons and vehicles in the process), deploying yet more troops in the region carries
a real risk of further boosting jihadists groups' military assets.

"Malian armed movements have employed an increasing proportion of heavy weaponry from
Malian government stockpiles - particularly ammunition for larger weapon systems such
as rockets and artillery - as opposed to Libyan or other foreign sources," Conflict
Armament Research said in a 2016 report on the Sahel.

Human Rights Watch recently reported on "killings, forced disappearances and acts of
torture" committed by security forces in Mali and Burkina Faso against suspected
members of jihadists groups.

Even if they are only committed by a minority of soldiers, such acts lead civilians
to mistrust the armies supposed to protect them, and in some cases to join the armed
groups to seek their protection instead.

"The fighters are found among the greater population, are part of them and live with
them. It is not easy to identify them. That makes combat difficult, even if there are
far fewer jihadist than soldiers," explained Ibrahim Maîga, a researcher with the
Institute for Security Studies.

"You can't defeat these people without helping the population caught in the middle.
One side accuses them of being terrorists, the other of collaborating with national
or foreign armies. This is why it is imperative that the state gains more
legitimacy," he added.

The G5 joint force's first operations are expected to take place in the LiptakoGourma
region, where the borders of Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso meet. These states
have been particularly affected by the attacks carried out by JNIM, Islamic State in
the Greater Sahara, and Ansarul Islam against national and foreign security forces.

On 21 October, 13 gendarmes were killed when their barracks in Ayorou in Niger's
Tillaberi region came under attack.

The joint force will be deployed in an environment rife with trafficking of all
kinds, and with globalised jihad, and where myriad local conflicts merge with and
fuel each other.

On the border between Mali and Niger, economic rivalry between Tuareg and Fulani
communities has deepened since becoming militarised and politicised.

Fulani youth - too simplistically - are seen as ready recruits to jihadist groups,
and Nigerien Tuareg militia are being used by the government to hunt them.

In northern Burkina Faso, Ansarul Islam built its popularity by challenging social
structures widely seen as inequitable, according to the ICG.

None of the groups operating in the region has claimed responsibility for the 2
October attack in which four US and four Nigerien soldiers were killed 200 kilometres
north of Niamey - an attack a top US general has attributed to a local IS-affiliated
group. The incident served to bring international attention to US military presence
in the region, described by some media as a "shadow war" at a time when the US is in
the process of moving its drone operations from Niamey to the central Niger town of
Agadez.

"Our American colleagues believe the [Niger] attack against their troops exposes a
dilemma: Do too much and be exposed, or don't do enough," a French diplomat remarked.

It seems the Pentagon is going for the first option: US Defense Secretary James
Mattis recently informed Congress that the United States was increasing its antiterrorism
activities in Africa and that new rules of engagement were being
introduced, allowing troops to open fire on mere suspects.

But for the jihadist groups in the region, a greater US military footprint will feed
their rhetoric of occupation and help swell their ranks.

fo/am/oa/ag

AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication providing reposted
commentary and analysis on African issues, with a particular focus on U.S. and
international policies. AfricaFocus Bulletin is edited by William Minter.

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